Immersion

Hey y'all,

This is a continuation of my last post, but focuses on how I immerse myself in a língua de português (the language of portuguese). Immersion is the NUMBER ONE thing to do when staying in the country for a few months isn't an option. Its not as valuable as actually being in an environment where the language is spoken as a mother tongue, but hey. Here are my tips, and though it's based on learning Brazilian Portuguese, most of them can apply to any language:

 1. TV
There is only one Brazilian channel on my tv (Record), but I certainly make the most of it. It's not the main network in Brazil, but it offers enough for me to feel like a Brazilian; novelas (their equivalent to soap operas); talk shows; children's cartoons; the news; entertainment shows etc. Not bad if you ask me. If you have a selection of international tv channels on your tv, this is perfect.

2. Movies
Anyone can go on YouTube and watch a complete movie in the language of your choice, which makes it ideal for free immersion. I do it all the time! Try and watch movies that are recent if you're aiming to speak quite colloquially, because then you will pick up some speech from situations that might happen to you everyday, but what the books either aren't quite up-to-date with, or are too scared to write.

3. Books and Magazines
With the new technologies of the 21st century, everything is available online, including books and magazines. In regards to books, I read children's ones because quite frankly, I'm not advanced enough in Portuguese vocabulary to understand half the stuff in adults books. It helps a lot with reading skills. E-magazines work in the same way as movies, but in writing obviously. Especially those with more... explicit content.

4. Social Networking

Twitter is particularly good for this. I set my location for trending topics to Brazil, and suddenly I can pretend I'm Brazilian to people that don't know otherwise. I'll just look at what's trending at that moment, and take part in conversation by tweeting whatever hashtags. I find it useful because it helps you understand all the internet abbreviations and slang (since I'm not learning for a business meeting) and helps with writing skills. Long Instagram captions in another language also make good reads.

5. The Internet
THE INTERNET! It has everything literally. I watch a vast amount of Brazilian youtubers' videos, for colloquialism and to improve on my listening skills. I hardly ever google anything in English now, unless it's about something specifically British. I personally find it very easy to read full articles, whatever the topic, in Portuguese without the aid of google translate, even though for whatever strange reason I can't write a full article in the the language.

6. Talk to Yourself
As odd as this may seem (and probably is), I tend to have dialogues with myself in Portuguese. I'm too socially awkward for skype, so this is the only way I can practice formulating sentences like a native and speaking. I often read stuff in Portuguese aloud, to practice the flow of the language. They speak quite quickly and words get smushed into each other and that's something you don't learn from Rosetta Stone (not that I use it, because I can't afford it). The tv and the movies and the YouTube should demonstrate what it's supposed to sound like when said correctly.

What I'm basically trying to say is that anything that you can find that is in the language you want to learn is your friend.

Sarah x

How I'm Learning Portuguese

Okay like no-one asked (I wasn't really expecting anyone to anyway) but I can't think of anything else to blog about this week so here ya go:

I discovered Babbel >>> earlier this year, because I wanted to increase my Spanish vocab (since school Spanish only teaches you how to say certain things).
Mini Babbel Review:
You join for free, and have access to the first lesson of every course module of free (I'll post a picture explaining at the end). To buy access to all courses - there are currently 8 courses for Spanish and 6 for Portuguese - you have four subscription options: £8.95 for 1 month, £17.85 for 3 months, £29.70 for 6 months and £53.40 for a year. Within each course there are many sub-courses and modules. The content is based on proper framework, so it's basically like walking into a language class, just without a teacher and on your laptop, phone etc. The website also includes a chat board and a friends tab, so you can practice interacting with people from all over the world. It's available as an app on iOS, Android, Kindle Fire and Windows.
Personally I think Babbel is excellent if you want to learn as if you are being taught in a language class (although I had to consult Google for a few of the grammar rules that Babbel didn't explain very well), and it's a bargain for the price in comparison to £200+ of Rosetta Stone.

(I'll link the site at the bottom (check it out to see prices in your country or browse the 10+ languages it has to offer)) 

Another platform I use is DuoLingo which I thought was going to be rubbish because it's totally free, but is actually really good.
Mini DuoLingo Review
Once I found out that DuoLingo was chosen as iPhone App of the Year by Apple, I was like WOAH OMG I GOTTA CHECK THIS OUT. You can access it on the web (I'll link it at the end) and as an app on iOS and Android devices. I've only been using it for 2-3 weeks, and so far so good. It uses gamification (check it out to see what I mean) and is more for giving you words, phrases and sentences to use. In each thing (for lack of better word to use), you either read, write, listen and possibly speak about 10-15 words, phrases, or sentences. It really is quite fun to use, On the web version, there discussion and immersion tabs, which I find really good. The immersion tab lets you translate thousands of different sources; wikipedia pages; news/magazine articles etc, and trust me, it isn't as bad as it sounds.

Those are the two educational platforms I use to learn, but I do a lot more to help me achieve close fluency, which I will explain in my next post, so watch out for that one!

Sarah x

LINKS 

babbel.com

duolingo.com